


Matters of Most

by terryh_nyan



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, H/C bingo, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Illness, Oneshot, Reichenbach Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 12:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terryh_nyan/pseuds/terryh_nyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sherlock is a huge baby and a huge, well, Sherlock. And John is still suffering the aftershocks of Reichenbach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matters of Most

**Author's Note:**

> It is 2AM and I shouldn't be anywhere near a computer. I should be fighting to get my sleeping schedule back.  
> Luckily - or unluckily, your pick - right now, my top priority is feels. And utter denial of reality. So, here, take this.  
> Still kind of new at this whole 'English' thing. Spotted any mistakes? Please let me know.
> 
> _(H/C bingo prompt: minor illness)._

It was only when his forehead had started burning up that Sherlock had realised he'd caught a cold.

 _A flu_ , John insisted, as he fussed and meddled and tried to smother him under the sticky and completely unwelcome embrace of blanket after blanket.

Sherlock wasn’t sure anymore if he had to constantly remind John it was just a cold because his friend could hear his throat was sore, or if his throat was sore from telling John it was really just a cold. Or if John would worry upon hearing him reassure him with a rough voice from having a sore throat because he’d worry about his throat being sore. God, his fever was far too high for his brain to be struggling with a paradox right now.

“It’s just a cold, John. I’m—” another coughing fit, “I’m _fine_ ”.

“You’ve said that exactly five times now, and each time you sound less ‘ _fine_ ’ and more like you’re about to cough up a lung”. John snatched from the floor the blanket his flatmate had managed to kick off yet again, ignoring his moans of protest like a mother would a grumpy child as he ungracefully threw it back on.

In the meantime, Sherlock’s mind had come up with about six different answers to that reply – varying from “I am perfectly capable of assessing whether I am o are not 'okay'” and “fever doesn’t alter my ability to recognise or perceive a common flu” to “worry isn’t going to magically make me better and your degree in Medicine should have taught you that already” to “you’re just preventing me from feeling cooler by actually making me _hotter_ ” to “couldn’t you at least sass me without _swaying_ ” – and his brain was still processing some other, hazier ones, but another coughing fit swept away the very wish of voicing one, let alone his faculty of even trying. Right now, Sherlock just wanted to curl up into a few tons of blankets and simultaneously dive head-first into a bathtub full of melted icicles.

Which he guessed could also be called ‘cold water’. Jesus, the names his brain was giving to things.

Maybe John _was_ a tiny bit right after all.

“Dinner’s almost ready” he chimed in from the kitchen.

Sherlock groaned and shifted on the sofa.

“You’re not making chicken soup, I hope, are y— _cough!_ ”

John emerged from the kitchen with exactly that, the smoking bowl in his hand and a spoon in the other. A smile was playing at the corner of his lips.

“For tonight and until you get better, this is 90% of what you’re going to eat. That's non-negotiable, by the way”. He handed Sherlock the soup, having to nudge it in his direction twice before he decided to finally take it. John smirked, noticing how he winced when his fingers brushed against the hot surface of the bowl.

“I feel like my brain is melting” he complained, mindlessly poking at what turned out to be a definitely rich of vegetables chicken soup with the tip of his spoon. He half felt like kicking the blanket off again, but he didn't dare, not when a particularly spiteful chill ran down his spine like its life depended on it. That was another thing about being ill he didn't, and didn't care to, understand: how he could possibly feel both boiling and freezing at the exact same time. Just minutes ago, he would've agreed to a family dinner with Mycroft if it meant he could put his hands on an ice pack for five minutes— now that he finally had one, however, the thought alone was enough to make his hands shiver, causing the surface of the soup to lap threateningly at the borders of the bowl, just beneath his fever-sensitive fingertips.

“Yeah, well, that’s just the fever messing with you. Even though I could cook a steak on your forehead right now and I’d risk getting it burnt down to ashes, cold is what got you into this situation in the first place”.

“I find that— _cough_ , highly unlikely. However hot my forehead might be, it still wouldn’t be able to even melt a marshmallow unless provided with fir—”

“Joke, Sherlock, joke”.

“Oh. I thought jokes were supposed to be funny”.

John shook his head for the umpteenth time that night. “Eat. And on with the ice pack, we still need to take your temperature down”. Which, to Sherlock, didn't make the slightest amount of sense— not when all John had been doing the whole day was smother him up in blankets.

After another couple of minutes of intense bickering – _“I have a_ cold _” “You have a_ flu _, it’s different!” “There’s barely any difference!” “Says the one with a degree in Medicine, I suppose? No? Didn't think so”_ – Sherlock gave up. He fumbled for the ice pack with hasty moves, which he regretted not a moment too soon, the room starting to spin around him. In a split second, John rushed forward to keep him steady, grabbing him by the shoulder.

“We’re going to need to tell Mrs. Hudson to fix those walls. They're not supposed to wobble that way” Sherlock mumbled, blinking away the black spots hovering over his eyes.

“Absolutely. Now stop flailing about like a goddamn baby, stay put, and _eat_. Doctor’s orders”.

If Sherlock had been about to say something in protest, he held his tongue. Instead, he glanced at his shoulder, where John’s fingers were still digging in the fabric of his shirt even though the moment of vertigo had passed.

Only then did John himself seem to notice. He quickly pulled away, backing into his own armchair.

“It’s getting cold” he said, gesturing towards the soup.

It wasn’t, but Sherlock ate a spoonful anyway.

They spent the next few minutes in silence, John picking through the newspaper he’d already read that morning, and Sherlock poking at his carrots and celery, his mind busy with: 1) wondering how a bowl of perfectly still chicken soup could possibly be swirling, and 2) intercepting the glances John kept shooting him from the edge of the paper he clearly wasn’t paying any attention to.

It had been like this for a while. Sherlock would pretend to be focusing on something else and John would start shooting him those glances he considered sneaky the very second he did so, whenever he believed he wasn’t looking, whenever he thought he _couldn’t see him_.

The worst part was, Sherlock didn’t even know what to make of those looks. Ignoring them – or at least not calling him out on them – in the first place wasn't something he normally would've done, he realised that much. Tact had never been a virtue Sherlock Holmes had been blessed with, and he'd always preferred it that way: one less hindrance to his work.

And yet, he did. His eyes jumped away from those looks like it burnt, his insides churning, and the urge of preoccupying himself with anything else at hand coiled around him and _tugged._ Sherlock never failed to be both annoyed and surprised by how natural it had become to look away.

He was completely at loss. John made him be at loss. Because, while there was a part of him that could barely itself from spurting out an annoyed _"what? Do I have something on my face?"_ , the rest of him still wanted to be able to look at that face in the mirror, hard as it was already. And he had the feeling he just wouldn't be able to do that anymore if he dared put John in the position to have to explain himself for something he probably didn't even know he did. It wouldn't make him any more comfortable with those stolen glances of his. And it definitely wouldn't make him feel any less...

Sherlock could only stick so much to rational thinking, could only keep that uncomfortable something at bay half the time, forbidding himself to actually feel _guilty –_  it wasn't right, and it didn't make any sense, and he shouldn't be so much as entertaining the thought. Even though a lump formed in his throat every time he rehearsed in his head the words John had spat at him on the day he'd come back from the dead. Even despite the knowledge that all he did, he did for him – and for Mrs. Hudson, and for Lestrade, but for _him_. No amount of logic seemed to be able to ease that twist in his gut because none of it felt _right_ anymore. And Sherlock wasn't sure he could get used to it; hell, he didn't _want_ to get used to it. He blamed John for blaming him, and then he blamed himself right back for making John blame him, and it felt like water droplets were trickling from the ceiling, onto his face and into his skin, digging a hole in the centre of his head, slowly, slowly.

That night, his skull was all too fever-soft to hold fort.

"Please, stop it".

John seemed to snap back from far away. "Stop what?"

"Stop looking at me like that. Like- like I'm a ghost, like I'm going to disappear on the spot if you blink—". He was angry, Sherlock. Angry that something so beyond any logic could ever happen - that you could save a person's life but lose their trust for good, as if it all were the result poorly-executed bargain. In his anger, he outright refused the thought of having to sacrifice yet something else to Moriarty's ploys - he could throw his reputation in the wind; he could give up entirely three years of his life to a ticking clock...

But in his anger, Sherlock didn't realise quickly enough what was coming out of his mouth. He only fully understood when he intercepted John's gaze, all but unreadable for a long second, and then all too clear.

John Watson's anger had subsided long before. Instead, Sherlock could almost see the outlines of seven lifeless words, slumping into his conscience somewhat softly, with sharp edges to ease their way in.

_'How do I know that you won't?'_

John didn't voice them. John settled for an even more painful couple of nods, a strangled, but filled with dignity, "Okay".

He settled for getting up, his pace like nothing had happened at all. He settled for disappearing into the kitchen without making a sound.

The droplets turned to daggers.

Sherlock would've liked nothing more than to bury his head into the steaming soup. 

That was when he realised: it had gotten cold.


End file.
